


Dangers in Texting

by jooliewrites



Category: How to Get Away with Murder
Genre: Drabble, Episode s01e07: He Deserved to Die, M/M, Minor Angst, episode coda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-08
Updated: 2014-11-08
Packaged: 2018-02-24 13:50:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2583653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jooliewrites/pseuds/jooliewrites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Oliver is really happy in his new relationship. Really. He is. Very very happy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dangers in Texting

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone, 
> 
> Just a really quick drabble/episode 1.07 coda from Oliver's POV about his relationship with Spatula Guy. I got this idea stuck in my head and couldn't resist.
> 
> Hope you enjoy!  
> -Jules xoxo

Oliver realized that he is being really stupid about this as pulled out his phone for the hundredth time that morning to open the text again. Surprisingly enough, it hadn’t changed since the last time he read it thirty seconds ago.

 

_I miss you._

 

He swiped the screen to the side to confirm what time the message came in. 2:16 AM. The message came from an unknown number, someone not in his contact list. Someone he'd _deleted_ from his contact list. Someone who Oliver waited to hear from for a week after kicking said person out of his apartment with nothing but radio silence. Someone who had done nothing to fix what had been shattered between them. Someone who Oliver was over.

Feeling foolish for considering texting back, Oliver closed the phone and tossed it in his desk drawer. Slamming the drawer closed with more force than he’d intended, he raised a hand in apology to coworkers in the surrounding cubicles and went back to work. Determined this time to actually focus on the task at hand for more than a minute before letting his thoughts wander to people who Oliver wasn’t thinking about anymore.

He didn’t need this in his life right now; everything was going well. Really well. Surprisingly well. Unnervingly well. It actually made him anxious how not horribly everything was going.

Work was great. He and Chuck, who shared his cubicle, were actually getting along for the first time in three years of sitting next to each other 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year. Mostly because Chuck had actually started doing his share of the work instead of letting it all fall to Oliver while he, Chuck, snuck onto World of Warcraft or started shit with people online via YouTube comments. Also, Chuck had stopped stowing his gym bag under the desk every other morning so the cubicle no longer smelled like stale B. O. all the time. Oliver suspected it had something to do with the new intern they’d hired and he thought the behavior was a little pathetic to be honest. However, it got him a coworker who actually worked and a workspace that didn’t smell like ass, so Oliver brushed it off and didn’t care. People had done worse for love. So yeah, work was good.

His family was also doing well. His parents had stopped giving him grief about when he was finally going to bring a boyfriend home for them to meet and turned their collective love and attention to his younger brother. For a while, Oliver had wondered if their newfound interest in his brother’s love life meant they had given up on him ever finding someone but then he remembered he didn’t care and started enjoying his Sunday afternoons free of the guilt-inducing calls from his father.

And, the best for last, things with the new guy were going really, REALLY well.

Steven was nice and sweet and kind. He cooked dinner for them. And by that, he meant that Steven actually cooked dinner. He didn’t just pick up takeout and then attempt to make it home before Oliver to dump everything on plates and pretend like he actually knew how to make chicken parmesan.

When Steven said he was going to call he actually called. There were no cryptic text messages instead of calls that came with emoticons Oliver had never seen before and had to decode online. If Steven missed a call he always explained why; there was no evasion when asked about why a call was never made when he eventually came home that night.

Steven didn’t blink an eye when Oliver mentioned meeting each other’s friends and going to his niece’s birthday party. He'd been the first to offer up a key to his apartment and clean out a drawer so Oliver didn’t feel like he was in college all over again living out of a duffle when they stayed over at Steven’s apartment.

Steven held his hand in public and took him out on dates. They made plans to spend Thanksgiving together before they’d even gone out for Halloween. He trusted Oliver to take care of his dog when he went out of town on business and helped Oliver’s 84-year-old neighbor across the hall change the battery in his smoke detector. Steven respected Oliver’s request to not sext him at work (Chuck had a bad habit of reading over Oliver’s shoulder) and never once asked Oliver to engage in any type of illegal activity. Well, Oliver did borrow Steven’s car once and Oliver may or may not have been insured but that didn’t really count as illegal compared to hacking into computers and looking at real jail time in exchange for a less than sincere thank you and the best blowjob Oliver had ever received.

Steven kept decent hours and never showed up in the middle of the night without so much as a text in warning. He was very open and honest and encouraged Oliver to talk about his feelings and family and past and hobbies and interests instead of shutting down whenever anything of actual importance was brought up in conversation. There were no landmines in their conversations. Nothing to watch out for and no topics that needed to be tiptoed through if not avoided altogether.

Steven was the first one to call Oliver his boyfriend and the first one to say I love you. To be fair, he was the only one who said I love you but the important part was that he didn’t shy away from those three words. He didn’t make Oliver feel guilty for feeling them, or not feeling them as it where. He didn’t make Oliver feel like their relationship was a fragile, delicate thing that could be easily upset with the gentlest rocking of the boat. With Steven, Oliver finally had a relationship that with a strong foundation of respect and courtesy and affection.

His relationship with Steven was really the best thing going on right now. It was fulfilling and satisfying and not at all boring or frustrating in it’s predictability and normalcy. Oliver didn’t feel at all trapped in his new relationship. He didn’t have minor panic attacks in his car on the way home from work on the days Steven texted him to let him know that he had gone to Oliver’s place instead of his own after work. He didn’t hate Steven being in his apartment when he wasn’t there. He liked them spending all their time together. Honestly, he really did.

Everything between them was going so well.

The fact that he wasn’t sleeping wasn’t necessarily the best thing. Oliver had developed a rather maddening routine of waking up in the middle of the night to stare at his, or Steven’s, ceiling. Listening to the soothing rise and fall of Steven’s breath and trying to figure out why it all felt so wrong. Why it felt like he was laying in bed next to the wrong person. The cadence of Steven’s breathing was off and he should be mumbling things to himself while he slept. The angle of Steven’s jaw wasn’t quite right and his smile wasn’t wide enough. Steven’s hair didn’t feel right when Oliver knuckled it between his and their mouths didn’t fit right when they kissed. Steven’s hand never felt quite right in his. Steven’s name always sat odd on his tongue when saying it, like the emphasis was being placed on the wrong syllables.

Oliver never let himself think of other people while he stared at the ceiling at night. That would be disrespectful.

That Oliver felt no desire to tell Steven he loved him was also a point of contention. It was mostly a point of contention between Oliver and himself but Oliver could tell that it did bug the other man that those three words were never echoed back. Every morning in the shower, Oliver convinced himself that he would say it today. He didn’t see what his big deal was. He did love Steven. He did. He definitely did. He just didn’t want to say it. The words caught in his throat and he couldn’t force them out. Every time, Oliver felt that same feeling that he’d gotten as a child when he tried to lie to his parents and discovered he just couldn’t make the words come out. But telling Steven he loved him wouldn’t be a lie. Oliver did love Steven. He did. He wasn’t holding the words back because he knew they weren’t true.

A rather loud sneeze from Chuck jolted him out of his daze. He really and truly loved Steven. He was very happy with him, happier with him than he’d been in a long time. Oliver was certainly happier than he had been with anyone else. Thinking about their relationship like this was silly and stupid and dangerous.

Everything about the text on his phone was dangerous.

Oliver slid open the drawer to grab out the phone. There was a new text from Steven and he opened it.

_My boss is being extra irritating today. In no mood to cook. Chinese tonight?_

Oliver read the text twice and attempted to smile like anyone getting a text like from their boyfriend that would. His boyfriend was being thoughtful; it was nice. Why did he suddenly feel like crying?

He opened the text from Connor and read the three words over and over again. They weren’t quite the three words he’d been hoping to hear all those weeks ago but these were a close second.

Oliver let himself type out various responses:

_I miss you too._   
_I’m still mad at you._   
_You broke my heart._   
_I don’t forgive you._

 

_Come home._

 

 

_I love you._

 

 

But deleted them all and then let himself reply with the only acceptable response.

_Don’t text me anymore._

Then he deleted the text. Oliver told himself it was because he didn’t want to risk Steven seeing it and getting the wrong idea. It had nothing to do with the fact that Oliver didn’t trust himself with that number on his phone.

Oliver shot off a quick reply to Steven before stowing the phone in the drawer again. No more distractions. It was time to get back to work.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you don't mind that I named Spatula Guy. He didn't have a name on IMDB. Well the actor was credited as handsome man - which he certainly is but that's not really a name - so I named him Steven, as in Steven the Spatula Guy (get it!?!). Also, I just couldn't resist tagging this as Oliver/Spatula Guy. I hope someone else out there found that as funny as I did at midnight. 
> 
> And, as always, [tumblr](http://ramblesandreblogs.tumblr.com/)


End file.
